Hello Balanced Life Family,
I wrote a blog a while ago about sugar. In that blog I mentioned that sugar is hidden in foods where you wouldn’t expect it to be. Well, today we’re going to talk about some of those foods.
Did you know that women should consume no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar a day, but the average woman in the U.S. consumes about 22 teaspoons of added sugars every single day? Wow! Much of this sugar comes from foods that you actually think are healthy.
Some of these foods that harbor hidden sugar are flavored yogurt with fruit, canned soups, salad dressing, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, bread (even some brands of whole wheat), granola bars, dried fruit, fruit juice, energy drinks, ketchup, pickles, relish, bar-b-que sauce, hot and cold cereals. . . Shall I go on? There are many more. There are so many foods that you eat when you aren’t even thinking about sugar, that’s how you can unknowingly consume 22 teaspoons a day.
Now obviously you won’t cut out all of the foods with hidden sugar, but it helps to be aware. Read the labels. Manufacturers have all of these fancy names for sugar on the labels. Whenever you see corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, lactose, sucrose, glucose, evaporated cane juice or fruit juice, caramel, carob syrup, dextrin, and there are a few others, all of them mean SUGAR.
Exactly why is sugar bad for you? A large body of research now shows that consuming large amounts of sugar negatively impacts just about every organ system in the body – increasing your risk for most of the chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even cancer.
So if you ever wondered why you’re not losing weight or continually gaining weight, even though you think you’re eating healthfully, the truth is, many foods that you think are healthy may not be as healthy as you think! Know what’s in the foods you are eating. Familiarize yourself with alternative names for sugar. Check the label for the ingredients and be aware of HIDDEN SUGAR!
